Fremer says 9" arms are inherently superior?

TLi

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May 27, 2016
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There is a strong market for 12" arm, so ........

All arm wands vibrates when in use. We cannot eliminate it. It comes from the stylus riding on the groove. I just want to point out wand vibration affects the sound more than tracking error.
 

ddk

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Anything with the same material will vibrate more with length. It is just simple physics.

Actually that's not true but even if you believe that, you forgot about mass in your simple physics.

There is a strong market for 12" arm, so ........

Are you saying the 12" SAT is a $50k dud?

All arm wands vibrates when in use. We cannot eliminate it. It comes from the stylus riding on the groove. I just want to point out wand vibration affects the sound more than tracking error.

To begin with not all resonance is bad. If needed there are many ways to deal with vibration and resonance in either length arm but how do you overcome the distortion of the shorter arm?

david
 

TLi

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The upcoming TechDAS Air Force Zero uses a 16" platter, 12" arm is the shortest possible length for it. This is, I guess, is the reason for a 12" SAT arm, i.e. to be used in Air Force Zero.

I am not saying 12" arm is bad, I said 12" has more resonance which can be good for some situations but it reduces resolution.

Tracking error is not that critical, otherwise we will notice difference in sound from outer tracks to inner tracks.
 

ddk

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The upcoming TechDAS Air Force Zero uses a 16" platter, 12" arm is the shortest possible length for it. This is, I guess, is the reason for a 12" SAT arm, i.e. to be used in Air Force Zero.

I am not saying 12" arm is bad, I said 12" has more resonance which can be good for some situations but it reduces resolution.

Tracking error is not that critical, otherwise we will notice difference in sound from outer tracks to inner tracks.

I’m sorry but you’re making this way too easy for me, please explain a situation where spending more money to get less sound quality can be good. You’re stating everything as fact and since I’m certain you haven’t compared the two did Marc tell you that the 12” is sonically inferior to the 9” SAT? What you’re saying here is that TechDas called SAT and asked Marc to make a longer but inferior tonearm and charge more for it, does that make any sense?

You might not hear it but tracking error can be detrimental to the sound and is certainly highly audible.

david
 

rossb

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May 24, 2017
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Anything with the same material will vibrate more with length. It is just simple physics.

I don't think that's correct. Surely anything with the same material will vibrate equally, but a different length arm will vibrate at a different frequency. A long arm should vibrate with lower frequency (longer wavelength) with the same stimulus. Whether the higher or lower frequency will be preferable would depend on the extent to which the vibration occurred in the audio band.

Tracking error is not that critical, otherwise we will notice difference in sound from outer tracks to inner tracks.

It is, and we do.
 

TLi

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David, you are right. I have not compared 9" and 12" SAT arm. Love to, but it is not on the market yet.

I have talked to Marc and he explained his theory. Marc was not an audiophile to begin with. He was an engineer. He looked at the mechanical requirement of a tonearm. If 12" is the shortest length of tonearm for Air Force Zero, he is trying to make the best possible 12" arm for it. Only 50 Air Force Zero will be made. There were only 70 pieces of original 9" SAT arm made. So 50 arms for Zero is not a small market.

His theory is simple, at least I can understand as a layman. Provided everything being equal, a shorter arm is more likely to sound better because of higher resolution. To me the largest tracking error comes from the swing of the arm, not the length of it.
 

shakti

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May 9, 2015
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I am an engineer, so may be I am a little bit pragmatic.
Starting the original Design of a product, you do your calculation and you make it right.
So the Original Product ist the "best" product.

If the marketing department ask for another version, like shorter or longer, you do stress the original design. Or you do design it new to the new requirement.

Looking to 9' and 14' 4 point, they are (from the first point of view) based on the original Design, only the length of the tonearm has changed, so my engineering understanding would say, the all dimensions were specified for the 12', why should be this dimensions the best for a 9' or a 14' version.

Comparing a 9' and a 12' from the same type , I would always ask, which version was first?

Is the new Version a complete new development?

I like companies like Jelco, they launch a new range of tonearms , all dimensions available from the first day, so the engineering department were able to develop a specification for dimensions and bearing, which fits to all requirements.

This Arms are able to judge, if 9' ore 12' is better.

But unfortunately they have a different effective mass, like the most 9' and 12' versions, so you will just here the better match to your cartridge in this regard.
 

ddk

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David, you are right. I have not compared 9" and 12" SAT arm. Love to, but it is not on the market yet.

I have talked to Marc and he explained his theory. Marc was not an audiophile to begin with. He was an engineer. He looked at the mechanical requirement of a tonearm. If 12" is the shortest length of tonearm for Air Force Zero, he is trying to make the best possible 12" arm for it. Only 50 Air Force Zero will be made. There were only 70 pieces of original 9" SAT arm made. So 50 arms for Zero is not a small market.

His theory is simple, at least I can understand as a layman. Provided everything being equal, a shorter arm is more likely to sound better because of higher resolution. To me the largest tracking error comes from the swing of the arm, not the length of it.

I don’t have a problem with saying that 9” wand is optimal for SAT’s design and 12” requires accepting some losses in overall soud quality and resolution but it can’t be generalized as universal truth for all tonearms.

david
 

spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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I love my tonearm.
5” long and zero tangential error.
 

awsmone

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Apr 6, 2014
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I thought some insight from Kuzma might help 07530944-1540-450F-B8AC-BAB3A85E8A38.jpg
 

NorthStar

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"The invention of the 12” tonearm was believed to address the issue of ‘tracking error’ heard by marginally reducing the tracking angle error with the increased length of the arm. You can see below why that’s not really the case! The only contribution of the 12” arm is actually to increase the pressure on the stylus/cantilever/suspension to direct the arm to where it needs to go. This causes unnecessary deflections and excessive low frequency movement of the stylus/cantilever while doing their job."

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ently-superior&p=511541&viewfull=1#post511541

MANUFACTURER COMMENT - Read that last part in full.
Actually read the entire article.

Happy spinning. :b
May 21, 2018
 

ddk

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May 18, 2013
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"The invention of the 12” tonearm was believed to address the issue of ‘tracking error’ heard by marginally reducing the tracking angle error with the increased length of the arm. You can see below why that’s not really the case! The only contribution of the 12” arm is actually to increase the pressure on the stylus/cantilever/suspension to direct the arm to where it needs to go. This causes unnecessary deflections and excessive low frequency movement of the stylus/cantilever while doing their job."

Get a protractor and manually cross the 9" & 12" versions of the same tonearm across and see what happens :). You don't need measurement equipment to plot a chart. Also if I have my history right 9" arms appeared later on consumer tables with smaller cheaper plinths.

david
 

PeterA

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Bob, that is an interesting article. Lots of comparisons between the Vertere arm and the SME V-12. Does anyone know the effective mass of the Vertere arm? It must vary with the sliding counterweight. The SME V-12 is 12grams and the SME V os 10 or 11 grams. The argument in the article is that the longer the arm, the more mass has to be pushed by the stylus/cantilever/suspension and thus more compressions and stress on those parts. But if the effective mass of the longer SME arm is actually less than the shorter Vertere arm, it seems that that argument is not correct.

What is really going on here with effective mass, and the work that a cartridge must do, and is this area of concern more important than resonances and tracking error?
 

Fsonicsmith

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Jun 25, 2015
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I owe all who have participated in this thread an apology to the extent that this territory has been plowed before and perhaps I should have done a search http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?9295-Oh-no-MF-is-not-a-fan-of-12-quot-arms!
That said, I see that there is no scientifically convincing answer. I think it is safe to say that no arm design, even tangential arms, are perfect. From there, we can perhaps agree that 9" arms can be engineered to be incredibly good but so can 12" arms. I believe that Mikey is wrong to imply that the best 9" arms are inherently superior to otherwise equivalently designed 12" arms. Am I the only one to notice that Mikey is anti-resonance in every way when it comes to his choice of loudspeakers (Wilson) and electronics (solid state) and his beloved (if not outdated) Continuum Caliburn deck sports an 84 lb platter on several hundred pound plinth and stand and in that regard hales from the same camp as his engineer editor, JA, and yet he loves and champions the most resonant of all playback technologies? In that regard, he is a self-conflicted enigma. I have always noticed that while he has great ears, great writing ability, and knows a ton about table set-up, he is neither formally trained nor even demonstrates much of an innate understanding of engineering. He is prone to repeating design and engineering aspects that were told to him or that he has read pertaining to whatever he happens to be reviewing at the time. And most important of all, for better or worse he is a listener who dissects, describes and rates products based upon all of the well-worn audiophile categories of performance rather than the overall gestalt of sound. Whereas Art Dudley and Herb Reichert listen for "the big picture", Mikey takes a magnifying glass to the music and gets out a set of tweezers. Let me know if I am mistaken, but I don't think Mr. Fremer has ever sung the praises of SPU's for example. Why is this relevant? Well, in my estimation 12" arms and SPU's are capable of producing incredibly intoxicating renditions of real music rather than renditions that satisfy all the audiophile blather that Mikey finds so attractive. Mr. Fremer's move from Sonus Faber Stradivari to Wilsons and from the tubed Manley Steelhead to uber-priced solid state Ypsilon is symbolic.
 

NorthStar

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Some of you here are among the analog elite of the audiophile higher end.
I'm ready to be educated.

I posted that article from Mono And Stereo because not only was it relevant with the tonearms's length but also because it was seriously written and included some of the top analog audio guns in the industry.

Is it the ultimate definition? No, as David remarked, and as Peter is questioning as a scientist explorer on a quest to turntabling expression.

And it's not about Michael Fremer the man, but about what the man says. Is he the absolute authority with the last words? No, he's an audio reviewer in constant experimental ground, a searcher, like John Wayne.
_____

Vertere Reference Tonearm

20180521_131331.jpg
 

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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I owe all who have participated in this thread an apology to the extent that this territory has been plowed before and perhaps I should have done a search http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?9295-Oh-no-MF-is-not-a-fan-of-12-quot-arms!
That said, I see that there is no scientifically convincing answer. I think it is safe to say that no arm design, even tangential arms, are perfect. From there, we can perhaps agree that 9" arms can be engineered to be incredibly good but so can 12" arms. I believe that Mikey is wrong to imply that the best 9" arms are inherently superior to otherwise equivalently designed 12" arms. Am I the only one to notice that Mikey is anti-resonance in every way when it comes to his choice of loudspeakers (Wilson) and electronics (solid state) and his beloved (if not outdated) Continuum Caliburn deck sports an 84 lb platter on several hundred pound plinth and stand and in that regard hales from the same camp as his engineer editor, JA, and yet he loves and champions the most resonant of all playback technologies? In that regard, he is a self-conflicted enigma. I have always noticed that while he has great ears, great writing ability, and knows a ton about table set-up, he is neither formally trained nor even demonstrates much of an innate understanding of engineering. He is prone to repeating design and engineering aspects that were told to him or that he has read pertaining to whatever he happens to be reviewing at the time. And most important of all, for better or worse he is a listener who dissects, describes and rates products based upon all of the well-worn audiophile categories of performance rather than the overall gestalt of sound. Whereas Art Dudley and Herb Reichert listen for "the big picture", Mikey takes a magnifying glass to the music and gets out a set of tweezers. Let me know if I am mistaken, but I don't think Mr. Fremer has ever sung the praises of SPU's for example. Why is this relevant? Well, in my estimation 12" arms and SPU's are capable of producing incredibly intoxicating renditions of real music rather than renditions that satisfy all the audiophile blather that Mikey finds so attractive. Mr. Fremer's move from Sonus Faber Stradivari to Wilsons and from the tubed Manley Steelhead to uber-priced solid state Ypsilon is symbolic.

well said...I don't rely on MF recommendations for my analog purchases...use only as another data point of interest.
 
Last edited:

PeterA

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Dec 6, 2011
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Some of you here are among the analog elite of the audiophile higher end.
I'm ready to be educated.

I posted that article from Mono And Stereo because not only was it relevant with the tonearms's length but also because it was seriously written and included some of the top analog audio guns in the industry.

Is it the ultimate definition? No, as David remarked, and as Peter is questioning as a scientist explorer on a quest to turntabling expression.

And it's not about Michael Fremer the man, but about what the man says. Is he the absolute authority with the last words? No, he's an audio reviewer in constant experimental ground, a searcher, like John Wayne.
_____

Vertere Reference Tonearm

View attachment 41202

I saw that and no mention of effective mass of the tonearm.
 

Loheswaran

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Dec 19, 2014
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In the latest issue of S'Phile Mikey, in the course of reviewing the 9" version of the Kuzma 4Point arm, declares the inherent superiority of 9" arms on the basis of less moment of inertia and higher rigidity. He has made such references in the past. I have no doubt he believes this but I am surprised that he cites to theoretical aspects only, and that his beliefs defy the historical collective consciousness of thousands of vinyl enthusiasts. I fully understand and accept that errors in cartridge alignment become magnified with a 12" arm but the difference that 1.5 or 3 inches of tonearm can make in relative moment of inertia would seem minuscule and Mikey's citation to stereo grooves and horizontal and vertical compliance causing minimum moment of inertia to be critical regardless of how flat the record is seems far-fetched. In my. case, I just ordered a 12" Reed 3P in cocobo from the importer and while talking to him, I was informed that he can't recall the last time he sold the 9" version of that arm and he frankly has no idea why Mr. Triukas even offers the 9" since the 10.5 and 12 far outperform it. I have no regrets going with the 12". For starters, a 9" will not accept an outer ring and I use one. But my question is; is Mikey as wrong as I think he is?

He's not in bad company - Max Townshend said that the stiffness and resonance (at the same length of the arm) benefits outweigh the length/tracking of a 12 inches. Breuer and the chap that makes Helius, Geoffrey, thinks that 10.5 gets about the best of both worlds.
Isn't that mega expensive tonearm (can't remember the name at present), and the almost as expensive one by Vertere both 9 inch arms?
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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I don't know the article OP is referring to but I'd be very surprised if Fremer made such a universal claim about 9" arms, vibration, arm rigidity, etc..

david

Yes, actually, I would, too. Saying that the 9" arm has some traits that are superior is perfectly defensible in terms of physical parameters.

However, I do think that if your goal is the most analog, tape like presentation, that the 12 incher's and low compliance cartridges will carry the day.

However, that is not necessarily the priority of all vinyl lovers. A lot of them like the esoteric, ethereal "spun silk" sound that some high end cartridges can fabricate.
 

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